Dead Scribe

I'm betting slaves to darkness don't even get a book to be honest, they seem to have been relegated to warcry. Though something about archaon would likely come out, I don't think its slaves to darkness. Rather I'd bet that an everchosen army can take elements of any chaos army and that the only models are really archaon and the varanguard and maybe some type of varanguard unit on foot that has been uber high fantasied up, leaving the legacy kits like chaos warriors, chaos knights, etc all... to be discontinued.

I think the game overall could do with a little more grit in its terrain rules, its activations, and positioning.

I have looked at some alternate activation rules that others have posted up. Some of them look neat. I do agree with the premise of an alternate activation (maybe even as benign as what middle earth does) simply for the removal of standing there doing nothing for two full turns. I am interested to see if anything comes down the pipe to change up how things are concerning double-turn.

I don 't know that it has really improved a lot. The same issues with balance people were complaining about three years ago are still basically here today, only the names and armies have changed. A smoother bell curve would be great. But I have given up on that a long time ago and I just make sure that my army is one of the top lists you can build so that I am not at a severe disadvantage in competition because others will be bringing those high end lists too and as much as people want to say there is a lot of skill in the game past the lists, I don't really see much of that. It is mostly about hooking the math in your favor with good odds and removing the weight of dice from being able to stick it to you and a minor sundry of other checklist items you need (like make sure you are screened, make sure you know what all your buffs do, things like that)

It drives away people not interested in top level play. What a community needs to retain those type of people are players playing in narrative or casual ways. That is a difficult prospect in game stores, where the default is competitive, so will require more legwork from the players. I and the people I play with have a limited time to play, and when we play it is to practice for a tournament, or to be in a tournament. I simply don't have time to handicap myself and waste time playing in a way I don't find fun and to be honest some people would find that insulting to play against a good player to find out that that player played down to them. That would also drive people away. I don't believe anyone should be ridiculed. We'll just scratch that one off the list, if someone is ridiculing someone in the hobby that person needs to be talked to and if that doesn't work, ejected from the store. I do however believe that being crushed is part of being mentored and helps you be a better player. Otherwise if you need games that are closer, I strongly recommend playing a different game like Kings of War or 9th age or something where the designers put a lot of effort into the balance aspect of the game. Trying to play AOS in a balanced manner is the whole square peg into round hole scenario to me. Just accept that the game will never be balanced and that the designers have no intention of actually making it balanced, that their lead designer really enjoys things like the triple keeper of secrets builds that are the opposite of balance, and that while venting is something I can appreciate, won't really do anyone any real good. The only thing that will matter in the long run is people paying for the products. So long as AOS continues to be a financial success, there is no reason to change the direction the team is going on.

I would second this (though more on the its not about balance part, competitive players find it great fun to unbalance the game because its a puzzle we are trying to solve). Competitive gaming is definitely anti-balance unless you are forced to do so because of event rules or game rules. I fully agree based on what they have produced and based on what they have said. Balance is not really their concern. 20+ years ago tournament gaming was not the industry that it is today. House rules are fine in a private setting. Tournament gaming has made it where the desire for a standard ruleset that we do not deviate from is absolutely a requirement (at least I can say that in American culture, I have never played over in the UK).

I think thats good on you all for jumping to a game that you can all enjoy. AOS has dropped heavily where I am as well, and 40k is dominating everything. I looked at playing 40k and am not interested in getting into it. If we had Middle Earth going here I'd look at that too but I have never seen it played outside of Adepticon.

The thing is we only have a very bare bones ruleset to go off of. How it should or should not be played will be up to the players. Many many players play it this way. If it should not be played in this manner, then GW needs to write rules that do not allow for it to happen or reward players for playing in this manner. As they do reward players for playing in this manner, it can be concluded that it is at the very least one way that the game should be played. I reinforce that point by pointing out that the AOS designers are they themselves heavy competitive players that build armies like the three keeper of secrets army (Ben Johnson has pictures on the internet of his three keeper army that he plays at tournaments very recently for example) If the lead designer is playing the game this way, I would also therefore conclude that the game is intended and designed to be played exactly that way.

However that is how a good portion of the playerbase plays. The reality for most of us is that we are in an environment where we are all building lists to win as fast as possible, thats how the game is structured and what is rewarded. If that is your environment, it makes sense you'd want to see battle reports reflect that as well. Battle reports where players are building gimp lists are not very engaging or useful for those of us who want battle reports that showcase high end level of play using high end lists so naturally you will have people make a comment on that if that goes against what they are looking for. There needs to be more of those type of battle reports I think. The ones showcasing high end play.

Thats why its important for communities to reach out to new players and tell them how things really are. If a new player walks into the store and starts oggling armies like khadron overlords or slaves to darkness or any of the older models like high elves, the community should give them a fair warning before they spend any money that they are going to both get destroyed on the table, and additionally have their models removed from matched play without any notice. Even if players are looking at picking up unoptimal models in a normally high powered army they should be warned that they are going to have a hard time having fun. If they decide to do that anyway after being warned, thats entirely on them.

It is important to check yes. However with true line of sight, it is also almost always the case where you can see some part of the target model which is where that laziness comes into play.

Well yes. If you want to have competitive games that is exactly what you have to do. And then when the new generals handbook comes out, you do it all over again. It seems to be working pretty well so far.

I don't really care about the story to be honest.

I don't think that they have any interest in this direction. I would say that I agree with Overread that they could do better communicating their intent a whole lot better.

I can understand how you feel. I don't have anything to offer that would make you feel better other than adopt a policy to only play with the new models. Anything that is a legacy whfb model I'd say avoid at all costs. Or play kings of war with them or Ninth Age if that is a thing where you live. AOS is a game where it is pretty much expected that you will have to regularly buy new models.

I would expect you aren't hearing anything about free people book because there aren't really going to be new models and the warscrolls are likely not going to be changed much at all. Its going to probably have some new abilities and spells, and cull a good part of the collection to legends. Unlike the new undead force which is all new models, so they will highlight that.

I doubt it since Kings of War is based on older warhammer ruleset that GW abandoned (the author was one of older warhammer fantasy authors as well). I don't think they have any interest in systems such as that. Those type of systems really aren't casual friendly or something that younger children can really get into because they have a lot more rules and the game being less reliant on dice means that many players find that style not very fun because they have no way to recoup losses or get back into the game.

I think AOS is not the game if you want everything to be competitively viable. GW will never get to that point. Enjoy it for what it is. If you are playing gitz then accept that you will never really be top tier on the podium with them, or sell them and buy an army that can get you to the podium.

Honestly as much as I'd prefer more realistic rules, leave that for the other games. The AOS camp is strongly abstraction-based, and thats what sets AOS apart.

The more super hero and cartoony the better IMO. Low fantasy or "realistic fantasy" I don't think sells well and GW also then has to deal with other companies making rip off models a lot easier. Crank the dial all the way up GW.

You get around it by learning to play better. The tournament players get around it because we play many games a week for months or years. Also people love low model count armies, so I'd expect to see more super powered gotrek models in the future that cost a lot of points.

We played with Gotrek last night in a handful of games. If you don't have a lot of ranged options, he's going to chaffe you pretty hard. Expect him to always be in the middle of the table gunning for your big dogs. I'd say that after a month or so of seeing him that it won't be that big a deal for those of us that play tournament level games. For casuals, its no different than having to face three keepers or FEC or tournament skaven so I wouldn't call that broken either, at least no more broken than AOS already is. Most of us aren't playing AOS for a deep balanced game anyway.

They have already removed a lot of the tactical choices from the games because people did not enjoy those, and left the game as a streamlined affair. Though I do agree that CAs going back to free to use like they were before wouldn't bother me. It does remove a layer of book keeping that a lot of people find tedious.

I think 520 points is actually pretty good for all of the things that he can do.

Compare it to 40k, where the name of that game is to make sure that you have a never ending supply of command points. That just seems like a design decision and whats fun, whereas running out of command points is not as fun, so they give you the ability to never have to worry about that.